Evolution (6 page)

I opened the passenger side and got in.
“How long have you been here? If I’d known you were waiting, I would have left the darkroom earlier.”

“Don’t worry.
I didn’t have anything else to do,” Curtis said as he started the car and I buckled up.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Did you have a good day at school?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. It had cost me twenty bucks, but I’d had a very good day at school. Taking pictures of the drama club had been well worth it—and especially making contact with the production’s prop manager.
Oh, yes, it was a very good day.

“Funny thing happened while you were at school,” Curtis said, breaking for a stop sign.
“Your coat and all the umbrellas reappeared.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He nodded. “Almost like magic.”

“I don’t believe in magic.”

“Neither do I,” he said, his eyes trained on the road ahead as the windshield wipers thumped in time with some old tune from the local jazz station.

I looked out the passenger side window thinking over what he’d just said.
No way was I going to feel guilty when the skies cleared later that night. At least, I hoped they’d clear. I was betting everything they would, and as the tune ended, the radio forecast confirmed it.

Curtis pulled up the drive and let me out before he parked the car in the garage.
I went on ahead and had hung up my still damp-jacket on the peg beside its cold-weather brother before I went into the kitchen. Richard was sitting at the table eating a sandwich, dressed to go back to work. He usually worked twelve-hour shifts, but sometimes more. No way did I ever want to be a doctor—of course, I had no idea what I wanted to be. Astronaut and Super Hero probably weren’t realistic goals.

“Hey, kid,” Richard said, taking another bite of his ham sandwich. As usual Helen stood at the counter.
Didn’t she ever take a break? I hated having conversations with her always listening in, knowing she reported everything to the enemy upstairs.

“Hi.”

“Good day at school?”

Couldn’t anybody ever ask a different question?
“I guess.”

He swallowed.
“I heard what happened this morning.”

I eyed Helen.

“I’m sorry you got drenched.”

“I didn’t shrink,” I muttered, taking a seat at the table.
“Can I have an apple or something?” I asked him, knowing if I asked Helen what the answer would be.

“Help yourself to anything.”

I got up and went to the fridge. A slab of peach pie covered in plastic wrap sat on a plate. I grabbed it, opened the silverware drawer for a fork, and sat down again, digging in. Helen glared at me. Had she been planning on scarfing down that piece of pie when no one was looking? I took another bite. “Wow, this is really good. Want a bite?” I offered Richard.

“No, thanks.
I don’t think any of your stuff will disappear again, but if it does—you let me know. Okay?” He said the words to me, but his gaze had shifted to Helen. Good. At least he realized there was a co-conspirator in our midst.

“Sure.” I cut off another piece of pie. “You’re working again tonight.”

“It seems like I work every night,” he said, and grabbed the glass of milk before him.

“Is that what you’re going to do the rest of your life? Work night and day?”

“Not if I can help it. I’m looking forward to the day when I can work regular office hours … at something. I’ll be done with my residency a week after you graduate. Freedom for both of us, huh?”

He didn’t know the half of it.

Richard polished off the last of his sandwich and stood. “Remember what we talked about last night?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I said, avoiding eye contact, but then he stood there so long, towering over me, I was kind of forced to look up.
He was smiling. Then he reached out and roughed up my hair and headed for the butler’s pantry. “See you tomorrow—maybe.”

“Yeah.
See ya.”

Half a minute later, he was out the door and heading for the garage. Curtis had sure been taking his time about coming into the house. He stood, leaning against his car, and Richard stopped to speak with him.

I turned my attention to the last bite of pie and looked out the window again. Richard and Curtis were laughing. Did either of them have a clue that I might be up to something? It didn’t matter. I’d made up my mind, and nothing was going to stop me.

“If you’ve finished, you can clear the table,” Helen barked at me.

Too bad my plan didn’t include her. Well, maybe after tonight she wouldn’t give me any more trouble, either.

I rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and then headed up to my room to put on some dry socks. And wait.
I had almost five hours to wait. And then after that, Mrs. Alpert’s time of tyranny would finally be over.

The thought made me smile.

#

“Damn, I wish I could stay and watch the show,” Robbie Baldwin said and opened the trunk of his father’s Ford. “I gotta be home in fifteen minutes or I’ll be grounded—again.”

“Just leave it on the sidewalk, and I’ll truck it around to the back of the house,” I said as we started pulling out boxes and bags of stuff. The biggest thing of all was the plastic pumpkin. “What did you bring that for?”

“It’s part of the costume,” he said.
“Hey, this stuff has to be back in the Drama Club locker by seven-thirty tomorrow morning or I’ll be in trouble, and I ain’t taking detention alone—I’ll rat you out in a second.”

“Don’t worry.
You just show up here by six tomorrow and pick me up. I’ll help you carry it all back into the school. Nobody has to know a thing.”

He shoved the trunk shut. “Six tomorrow,” he said, got in the car, started it, and drove off, not turning on his lights until he was down half a block.

Thirty minutes before, I’d crept down the stairs and let myself out the front door—not wanting to disturb Curtis, whose room was closest to the butler’s pantry and the back door. It had taken me longer to sneak the extension ladder out of the garage and get it ready. The stupid thing didn’t want to go beyond about twelve feet, and I worried that Curtis would hear me bashing it with a hammer, but eventually it did stretch out to its full height and I took it out back and laid it down in the grass to wait.

The sky had cleared, bringing with it a cold wind and a gleaming half-moon.
Good. When the time came, I wanted to be completely visible.

It was damn cold in that dank garage, so I tried on the costume.
The sleeves were a long longer on my arms than the guy who’d worn it in the play. I didn’t need the pants anyway, and struggled into the rest of the outfit, shoved up the sleeves and found that my arms were restricted. How the hell was I going to climb a ladder when I could barely move my arms? It looked like I’d wasted twenty bucks. But then I had another bright idea. Yeah, it could still work, but first, I made a few modifications.

Curtis didn’t turn off his light until after eleven, and I waited another twenty minutes to make sure everyone in the house was asleep before I grabbed the prop and headed for the backyard and set up the ladder.

The grass was still slick and, as I climbed, my wet sneakers slipped on the rungs. I held onto the ladder with my right hand and the prop with the left, forcing myself to move slower. I’d be lucky if I not only pulled off this stunt, but didn’t kill myself in the process.

Once I was at the right height, I struggled to put the big plastic pumpkin on my head. The eyeholes I’d cut didn’t exactly line up with my own, but it would have to do.
I was starting to get cold feet—literally and figuratively.

Taking a breath, I inched over on the rung so that I was half on and half off the ladder, steadying myself by planting my left foot against the house.
And then I started tapping on the window. Quietly.

After about thirty seconds, I tapped harder.

Another thirty seconds went by. How long was this going to take? Had the old lady gone to the can to take a leak?

In desperation, I banged on the window, hoping like hell I didn’t break the damn thing.
All I could see was my own reflection on the glass. And then suddenly the curtains were pulled back and I heard a hair-raising scream.

Startled, I nearly fell off the ladder.

The screaming continued.

Lights went on in the next room.

It was time for me to vamoose.

I stepped on the next rung down, and slipped, grabbed onto the ladder, and nearly fell.
Wrenching the pumpkin off my head, I dropped it to the ground, and stepped down again and again, but in my haste, felt the ladder jerk to one side and I fell backward with the ladder falling on top of me.

All the lights in the house were suddenly on, and I heard shouting from the side yard nearest the driveway.
Holy shit! I hadn’t counted on this. My left foot seemed to be tangled around one of the rungs and I couldn’t shake it loose.

The backyard light came on and Curtis ran around the side of the house.
“Who’s out there—I’m calling the cops!”

“Curtis, no!” I hollered.

“Jeffrey!
Is that you?”

“Yeah.
Help me out of here, will you?”

Curtis stood over me, his hand
s on his hips, dressed in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers. “Boy, what have you gone and done?”

I laughed.
“Just having a little fun.”

He looked at me sternly. He was not laughing. “You done given that poor lady a heart attack.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said, as Curtis pulled the ladder off of me. “I just wanted to scare her—to stop her from bugging me.”

He shook his head.
“Boy, you’re in real trouble now.”

#

Richard closed the door to his grandmother’s bedroom and let out a long breath. Still dressed in his hospital scrubs, he considered his next move. Should he be a bastard and punish the kid for nearly scaring his grandmother to death—and if she hadn’t been such a crabby old cuss, the scare might just have ended her life—or should he let the kid off the hook?

No doubt about it, when he’d been called home after his pager had gone off, the old lady had been practically hysterical. Since then, Curtis had plied her with sherry, but her heart rate had definitely accelerated when she’d recounted the story to Richard. Still, he was pretty sure her histrionics were more dramatic than detrimental to her health. After fifteen minutes of soothing talk, she seemed quite fine.
He also hoped she now understood that baiting a lonely, unhappy kid was just as unacceptable as his retaliation. Time would tell.

Now he had to decide what punishment to dole out to Jeff.
Wasn’t that what a good parent did when a child stepped out of line? But the problem was a big part of him admired how the kid had dealt with the situation.

For the second night in a row, Richard crossed the darkened hallway and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Jeff said.

Richard opened the door.

The kid sat on his bed, his head bowed, still dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing when they’d last met. Only now, they were damp, and grass- and mud-stained.

“I guess you know why I’m here,” Richard started, gravely.

Jeff said nothing.

“I’m very disappointed in you.”

Still no reaction.

“After last night’s discussion, I thought we’d agreed you’d—”
he paused, “behave.”

“I thought after last night
she
might behave,” Jeff said, still staring at the carpeted floor.

“Do you have any idea what it means for me to have to leave the hospital? There are people whose lives depend on me, but instead I have to come home to referee some petty shit between you and my grandmother.”

“Hey, I’m just a kid. She’s a grownup … unless maybe she’s senile, ’cause she sure doesn’t act like an adult.”

No
, Richard had to admit,
she sure doesn’t
.

“My grandmother has a serious heart condition. A scare like that could have sent her into cardiac arrest.
Why on earth would you pull such a stunt?”

“She hid my coat. She hid all the umbrellas.
She made me walk to school in a downpour in forty-degree weather.”

“She could have
died
,” Richard reiterated.

“She’ll outlive us all,” Jeff countered bitterly.

The old lady was stubborn enough to do just that.

“Tell me exactly what you did, and what you thought it would accomplish?”

The kid let out a long breath. “I borrowed a costume from the school’s drama club. They’re doing a play—The Headless Horseman. Only, the stupid costume was too big for me. I couldn’t move my arms and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to climb the ladder.”

“Go on,” Richard prompted when the kid fell silent.